A Brief Madness
by Polly Lynn
Summary: "It's there, even though he's by her side. Even though he's sprawled in the chair that's his, taking over a corner of workspace that's rightly hers. He's shoulder to shoulder with her by the board. He's with her, helping or hindering. Entertaining himself or distracting her. And still it's there: 'It doesn't mean I'm not still mad'." Set during and around Kick the Ballistics (4x04)


Title: A Brief Madness

Rating: T

WC: ~1900

Summary: "It's there, even though he's by her side. Even though he's sprawled in the chair that's his, taking over a corner of workspace that's rightly hers. He's shoulder to shoulder with her by the board. He's with her, helping or hindering. Entertaining himself or distracting her. And still it's there: 'It doesn't mean I'm not still mad'."

A/N: This is rather open ended. I have an end point for it, and I've roughed out several moments on the road to it, but each of those is something like a stand-alone. I'll post them as chapters, but they're closer to loosely linked stories set in early S4.

This first chapter takes place in and around "Kick the Ballistics" (4 x 04)

* * *

"_ira furor brevis est_

(Anger is but a brief madness.)_" _

_— _Horace

* * *

She thinks about it a lot. All the time, really, and she doesn't know where the headspace comes from. The energy.

She's still in pain. A _lot _of pain, and it drains her. She's exhausted, between work and physical therapy and just the background of it. How much it takes out of her to manage the pain itself. She sleeps harder than she ever has in her adult life. Deep and not quite dreamless and it's there. All the time. It's the last thought that sparks before her mind goes dark at last. It's a melancholy wave crashing against the shores of sleep.

_It doesn't mean I'm not still mad._

* * *

She throws herself into work, because that's what she knows how to do. It's always been a foolproof solution. She fills her mind with the details of each case. No cracks at all for her own darkness to fill.

Except it doesn't seem to be working. Not when it comes to this. It's there any time she lets herself slow down. It's immediate. Present and demanding when she closes her eyes at her desk and pinches the bridge of her nose. It's there when her mind is locked up and she needs to come at things a new way.

It's there, even though he's by her side. Even though he's sprawled in the chair that's his, taking over a corner of workspace that's rightly hers. He's shoulder to shoulder with her by the board. He's with her, helping or hindering. Entertaining himself or distracting her. And still it's there.

_It doesn't mean I'm not still mad._

* * *

"It seems to preoccupy you, Kate."

There's a thread of something in Burke's tone that makes her want to apologize. Exasperation, she'd call it, if he were the type of man who'd let such a thing bleed through, even with her.

"I just . . ." She runs her hands over the leather arms of the chair. "I don't understand it."

"Why he's angry?"

"Why he's not."

They blink at one another across the room. Each half in shadow, half in light, and she suddenly thinks how much of the year is gone. It seems like a non-sequitur. It seems like she should know that it's not.

"He _should _be mad." She looks to Burke for something. Approval or confirmation. He regards her calmly, though. No exasperation now. No errant flicker of eyelids. He's waiting for her to come around to it. The end point he knows is there, even though she can't imagine what it is. "He should be mad, even without . . ."

The words just dry up. The breath underneath them. Burke takes pity on her for some reason.

"Without the details you haven't shared," he says. Calmly, of course. Neutrally. "About your shooting."

"Without the lie," she snaps. It hurts. Sharp, physical pain like always. Familiar enough she knows how to hide it. To keep her body still and her face blank. She doesn't feel like another lecture on the fact that _psychosomatic _doesn't mean _imaginary_. She hardly hesitates. She barrels onward. "Even without that, I just left. For three months. Three_ months.__" _She looks out the window. Shivers, as if fall is creeping in at her collar. "He should still be mad."

"What makes you think he isn't?" Burke sets his pen and pad aside. Apparently they don't need props for this.

He must think she knows what he's getting at. She doesn't though. If she were still in the habit of faking her way through sessions—and she's not—she wouldn't even know where to start right now. Still, he seems confident. He threads his fingers together. A knot resting on one thigh that says there's plenty of time for her to get there.

"He's back," she says at last. She makes her case. Flattens her palm against the leather and taps at it, ticking off points on her fingers. "He's there. Every day. He brings me coffee and makes stupid jokes and says smart things I wouldn't have thought of. And it's . . . "

"It's like before you were shot."

He makes it a statement, not a question. He makes her do the work of contradiction.

"Not exactly." She hangs her head. "Not exactly like before."

* * *

Afterward, she notes the differences, big and small. It's not that the session was a breakthrough. It's not that she needed Burke to guide her by the hand. Not really. She just counts them now. She pays attention. Gathers data. It _preoccupies _her.

There's a hard edge to his smile some mornings. Like he's had to practice to get it right. He's too quick to laugh. To edge away from moments that would have conjured a different kind of smile in him when the year was young.

There's a narrow-eyed look he gives her when anything in the neighborhood of that day comes up. Like it's the moment after he last saw her in the hospital and he can't reconcile this version of her with the one from back then. Like he can't stitch together the missing months, and he doesn't quite believe she isn't dying.

There's a heavy gaze that falls on her and stays. Even when she looks, sometimes. Even when she catches him, he doesn't turn away, and she thinks he knows. Her fingers press against her scar. Pain flares and she thinks he must know.

But most of the time she realizes he doesn't. That he believes the lie or he wouldn't be here. He'd never have come back if he knew.

He asks her outright one morning. She reaches for her coffee. Smiles at his recitation of her order. It's a little too bright. A little forced on both sides. It's _this _difference she feels at home with. The difference she thinks she might deserve.

She reaches for her coffee, and she's not expecting the pain. It's real enough. The year is waning and it's cold for October. PT is getting harder, not easier, and her therapist blames her for not taking the extra time for warm-up and cool-down. She's not expecting it. She moved wrong, that's all. It has nothing to do with him. With her mind. It has nothing to do with what he does or doesn't know.

That's what she tells herself, but he asks outright.

"Surgery?"

It throws her. The word is sharp. Quick. But his hands make themselves into fists like he's trying not to reach for her, and it's worry she hears in his voice. Fear, not anger.

She shakes it off. She smiles and squints into the sunlight of the waning year. Into the shadows the overpass throws over everything.

"Yeah. Sometimes the scar pulls a bit."

There's a pause. Brief enough that she wonders if she only wished it. If, for a moment, she thought it might pass away.

But he asks outright.

"And you still don't remember anything about that day?"

There's no anger at all. Just the other kind of difference, gathered up and balanced on the moment between them. There's hope. Tentative wishes of his own that he shares in this new, sidelong way. That she echoes back when she's brave enough.

There's no anger, and it's like the pain was a prophecy for all the good it does her.

"No. It's blank."

* * *

She thinks about calling Burke. He's generous with his time. Good about end-of-day maintenance sessions when she needs them. But it feels childish.

It's Tyson who's gotten under her skin. She tells herself, but that's not it. She hurts for them. Ryan and Castle both. She hates the memory of that hotel room. How it haunts the two of them. She wishes there were a way to make them see this isn't their burden. Her decisions brought them here as much as anyone's, and they carry it together.

All of that is true. But none of it explains the pain in her chest.

_No. It's blank._

* * *

It's late, then it's later. When she's too exhausted to pace, she falls into bed. Her eyes won't close, though. She fades out and up, her consciousness buzzing around the edges of the pain. Examining it in all its phases. Throbbing and dull, now sharp. A quick, searing slice that dissolves into an itch.

That drives her on to her side. She wraps her arms around her head even though it hurts. Even though it strains muscle and skin and scar tissue. It takes her mind off the itch. That's the plan, anyway, but it just adds to it. Piles on.

The phone catches her eye. An oblong of white she doesn't recognize at first because she's exhausted. She hurts.

She reaches for it anyway. Ignores the tall white numbers that mean something. Ignores everything sane and reasonable. She sends him a text.

_You still mad? _

It's done before she can stop herself. Before the sheer strangeness of it catches up with her. But the pain lessens. She breathes in, a little deeper each time. An experiment. Repetition of it. It lessens.

The minutes tick by. She idly wonders how she'll explain it in the morning. If he'll even mention it, or if it's too strange even for him, and he'll be polite. She wonders if the scar will let her lie. If it's specific to him. If it's specific to _that_.

_No. It's blank. _

She's still wondering when the phone rings. When his face fills the screen and she stares in horror. Confusion, even as as her thumb comes down over the green button. _Accept. _

She raises it to her ear. Forgets she's the one who's supposed to say something. He does, too. He doesn't wait.

"_Mad about what?" _

His voice is thick with sleep, but there's a keen note of curiosity. Of hope, she thinks, though it must feel like half a dream to him.

"Castle," she whispers like there's someone else she might disturb. "Why are you _calling?__" _

"_Middle of the night." _His voice is faint, then loud, like he's drawing his hand over his face. Like he's willing himself awake. Willing sense into a moment that's sheer madness. _"Fat fingers. Can't text." _

"Oh."

That answers that, she supposes. Except it doesn't really. He hasn't answered either question, and she doesn't know how to ask again. She doesn't think she gets to ask again.

"_Kate," _he says when the silence stretches out too long. She has her answer, right there in the space of her own name. How it sounds in his mouth. He could leave it there. It's the middle of the night. But he's careful with her. However angry he is—he _still _is— he's careful with them, like always. _"Mad about what?" _

She thinks about it. It's too big to pick apart. All the things that invite anger. Dismissal. Concession that this isn't worth it. She's not worth it. It's too big to leave there, unspoken forever.

"Summer," she says. "Waiting. Three months."

He's quiet. They're both quiet in that laden-down way that leaves no question that they're both still there. That the call hasn't dropped. No convenient black hole has opened up to make an end of her.

"_Yeah." _There's no malice in it. Nothing especially kind, either. It's a fact. _"Still mad about that._"

"Ok." Her scar throbs, but it's more to do with an all-over ache. Sadness at work all through her, and the pain settles into something manageable if she works at it. Something that might let her be long enough to close her eyes.

"Ok," she says again. "But I'll see you tomorrow?"

"_Of course," _he says swiftly. _"Of course. I'll be there."_

* * *

A/N: Thanks for reading.


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